Editor’s note: This essay was adapted from a talk given by Arthur C. Brooks at the Deseret News 175th Anniversary Gala on September 24, 2025.

A decade ago , when I was running the American Enterprise Institute — a think tank in Washington, D.C. — I read an article in a psychology journal that really shocked me. It was about something called motive attribution asymmetry. That’s a fancy set of words for a very simple concept. It’s when there’s an implacable hostility and conflict between two people or two groups, and it’s motivated by the fact that both sides believe that they love and that the other side hates.

Now, it’s impossible that two sides could both simultaneously love and hate. But that error is incredibly common. The article shocked me because it showed that the United State

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